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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24353569">Go Big or Gourd Home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunnybadgerV/pseuds/HunnybadgerV'>HunnybadgerV</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>An Arrow for Directness [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:02:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,282</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24353569</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HunnybadgerV/pseuds/HunnybadgerV</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Deputy Quick gets a taste of things to come and learns just how little weight her former position holds for some of the citizens of Hope County now that the Reaping has begun. She also makes a new friend.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>An Arrow for Directness [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729924</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Go Big or Gourd Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The deputy left Dutch’s Island with the intention of heading North, both to confirm his claims about the tunnel as well as to see if she couldn’t repay his kindness by helping find his niece. In the back of her mind, she still held out hope that she’d be able to find a way to get word out of the valley and more help into it. Pulling onto the main road, she settled into the seat of the pickup she’d found at the camp. The keys had been behind the visor, which made it the easy choice.</p><p>The only station she could tune in was the cult-operated one, so she just turned it off. It wasn’t unusual to drive through Hope County for a few minutes and not see a car, but as the miles rolled on the odometer a sense of dread washed over her. She’d already passed three cars left precariously on the side of the road, like they had been run off the road.  The one at the crossroads made her slam on the brake.</p><p>A sporty blue coupe with a bashed-out driver’s side window had the word SINNER spray painted across the windshield. She couldn’t be sure from this distance, but the darkened section of ground might have been blood—a lot of blood. The distant sound of gun fire pulled her attention in the opposite direction toward the orchards. Her eyes darted about as she waited to hear another burst of fire. Taking in the area, she caught sight of the billboard.</p><p>“Rae-Rae’s Pumpkin Farm, huh?” She sighed and turned the wheel, heading toward the gunfire when good sense might suggest otherwise.</p><p>She followed the signs, speeding along the road without the aid or warning of sirens, not that either were necessary. And there was a benefit to not announcing her approach. The deputy might be able to take the shooters by surprise.</p><p>Pulling off the paved road, the truck bounced and rumbled along the dirt road. Another truck came into view, then a trailer. She heard the shots that pierced through the windshield before she saw the man shooting. Her foot crushed the brake as she slid down in the seat, helped a little by the vehicle’s momentum. She managed to also slam her other foot down on the parking brake jerking the whole thing to a halt that threw her into the steering wheel harshly. Gasping for the breath that had been knocked out of her, Tayen reached for the door handle. Leaving the truck in gear, she fell out of the driver’s side as the gunfire continued. Bullets plucked at the metal and careened here and there.</p><p>“Fucking hell,” she muttered to herself. Covering her head until she could get her bearings. The shooting stopped for a second, presumably while the shooters reloaded, and she scrambled into a crouch and reached into the cab again. She leaned across the seat and grabbed the rifle she’d taken of one of their brethren at the camp.</p><p>“Hope County Sheriff,” she yelled, like she’d been trained. “Put your weapons down.”</p><p>They responded with a hail of bullets. Their footfalls crunched in the gravel, getting closer. She knew she was pinned down. <em>This could get ugly</em>, she thought. She leaned forward and peeked under the truck, watching their feet get farther from one another.</p><p>
  <em>Shit!</em>
</p><p>“If you don’t put your weapons down, I will be forced to return fire.” Even as she said it, she knew she was going to be forced to shoot at least one of them. And even before she raised her weapon in self-defense, she tried to come to terms with that within herself. With taking another life. She popped up and drew on the man near the hood of the vehicle. When the barrel of his weapon moved, she fired a single burst—center mass. He wouldn’t have a chance. She dashed around the front of the truck just as rocks and dust flew away from the impact of bullets from behind her. Peeking out, she put down the other man.</p><p>“Fuck!” she growled pressing her head back against the grill of the truck. She looked down at the man’s body near her. His blue eyes mirrored the clear sky above. He was younger than she would have expected. She grabbed him by his collar with one hand and pulled his face toward hers “Why couldn’t you just listen?”</p><p>She pushed him away again in frustration. A dog’s barking pulled her back into the world, reminding her why she was there in the first place. “Rae-Rae,” she breathed, scrambling to her feet.</p><p>Caution and speed mixed, as she moved toward the house, sweeping and clearing the shed. She cast a glance at the dog in the trailer. He barked at her and scratched at the floor near the door of the cage. “Chill boy. I’ll see if I can find a key,” she told him, but her attention was on the pair of bodies near the door.</p><p>Tayen ignored the open door of the house, all her attention went to the victims that lay a few feet from it. With her pulse pounding in her ears, Tayen Quick crouched near the two bodies. There was too much blood for her to have any hope at all, but still she felt for pulses. Her fingers moved from the cool skin of one neck to the other, then to wrists, each in turn, as her tenuous grip on slivers of hope loosened and fell away.</p><p>“Fuck,” she breathed. It didn’t untwist the guilt in her stomach that came with the shooting of two men, but it made her feel a little justified in that extreme response. At the same time, she tried to stamp that sensation away. This wasn’t how she was supposed to feel.</p><p>She grabbed the radio from her hip but couldn’t keep the disappointment out of her voice. “Dutch? You there?”</p><p>
  <em>“Didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”</em>
</p><p>“Me either. I stopped in to check on Rae-Rae. Figured after that message she left you …” She couldn’t find an explanation or reason for her actions, just that she’d did it.</p><p>
  <em>“Good on you, Dep.”</em>
</p><p>“Not really. They’re dead.”</p><p>
  <em>“Damn.”</em>
</p><p>“Yeah,” she replied moving into the house with more caution. “Looks like they were on the way out.” At least if the half-packed suitcase on the bed was any indication.</p><p>
  <em>“Cult got there fast.”</em>
</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>
  <em>Dutch was silent for a time. </em>
  <em>“Eli mentioned something to me a while back about Jacob’s people taking wolves and other animals. Said some of his boys have been reporting big ass wolf tracks round an about.”</em>
</p><p>Tayen waited for his thought to play out to fruition.</p><p>
  <em>“Maybe they came out there looking for Boomer.”</em>
</p><p>“Boomer?” she asked.</p><p>
  <em>“Rae-Rae’s dog. Regional champion. Smartest damn beast you’ll ever meet.”</em>
</p><p>“He a brindle? Black and gray,” she asked peeking out the bedroom window at the dog sitting in the trailer looking at her expectantly.</p><p>
  <em>“Yeah. He still there?”</em>
</p><p>“Yep. Staring at me right now actually.”</p><p>Dutch chuckled. <em>“I’ll be damned.”</em></p><p>“Me, too.” She said meaning it more than as a simple expression of surprise. A plume of dust pulled her attention. “Damnit.”</p><p>
  <em>“What is it?”</em>
</p><p>“Backup.” She hooked the radio into the holder on her duty belt and took cover. She laid the rifle on the sill to line up her shot. It came like instinct, like how your body moved when you climbed on a bike. Her response was coded in her muscles, her body. Taking in a long breath, she held it. Her finger pressed back on the trigger, and the rifle kicked.</p><p>As that breath passed between her lips, the truck veered and crashed into a post. The horn blared under the weight of the man in the driver’s seat.</p><p>“Drop your weapons!” she yelled. She did not expect them to listen or even hear her over the noise, but she clung to the ritual of her position.</p><p>This time around she got a better look at them as they moved. They didn’t act like idiots with guns; no, they moved like soldiers. <em>Guess Dutch</em><em>’s estimation about Jacob’s role was dead on. </em>The consummation of that information was of no comfort to the deputy. It just set her farther on edge.</p><p>She shot one in the ankle and watched him collapse. The other man pushed his dead comrade off the horn, revealing the high-pitched whir of an ATV engine.</p><p>“Sheriff!” she yelled toward the window before ducking out of the room. The wood splintered behind her as she shifted against the walls toward the back of the house. Almost everyone out here had a back door and she hoped these folks were no different.</p><p>“Going ‘round back,” one called.</p><p><em>Fuck</em>. She froze and pressed against the siding of the house. <em>How the hell did he see me?</em> A moment later she realized that his yell hadn’t been that kind of warning, as the man jogged right around the corner. While he froze at the sight of her, she sprang. In her mind it was him or her, and she knew who she had to choose. The butt of the rifle made a sickening crunch when it connected with his nose. Just like with the shot from the window, her body moved in the manner it knew, the way it had been trained.</p><p>Her hands shifted, bringing the barrel downward. One shot silenced his banshee’s wail. She didn’t spare it a thought, there was still at least one more looking to do the same to her. As she neared the corner of the house, she noticed the dog in the trailer. It was staring just to her left, a low growl in its throat as its fur bristled.</p><p><em>Good boy</em>. She pressed against the wood and watched. As he neared the corner, Boomer started barking like mad. With the barrel of her rifle at chest level, she stepped out, firing before she really locked a target. The man crumpled and she kicked the weapon away from him.</p><p>“Good boy,” she told the dog, out loud this time. “Anyone else?” She assumed that if he’d told her so cleverly where this guy had been, he’d know better than her if there were other threats about. He just sat on his haunches, licked his lips, then panted at her with his tongue hanging out.</p><p>“I’ll take that as a no.”</p><p>He barked.</p><p>“Guess Dutch is right about you being smart as hell.” She hopped over the fence and looked through the bed of the truck for something to pry open the lock. Grabbing a crowbar, she figured it would work well.</p><p>Boomer pranced in circles and paced the length of the door while Tayen struggled with the lock. Once the gate slid open, he bolted out of captivity and ran right over to his owners’ sides. He laid between them and rested his head over the shoulder of the woman. Quick sat on the edge of the trailer and watched him.</p><p>“Dutch?”</p><p>
  <em>“Good to hear you voice, kid. Got that dealt with?”</em>
</p><p>“Yeah.” She didn’t try to disguise her disappointed tone. “Still too late.”</p><p>The old man didn’t respond.</p><p>“But they didn’t get Boomer.”</p><p>
  <em>“Well, that’s something at least. If the Seeds wanted him, then it wasn’t anything good for the rest of us. You done good.”</em>
</p><p>“Doesn’t feel that way,” she replied, stowing the radio and cutting it off before she could listen to any kind of disagreement. The deputy walked over to the dog looked at him. She couldn’t leave him there.</p><p>Slipping into the house, she went to the kitchen and looked for anything that looked like treats. On a lark, she opened the cookie jar shaped like a begging dog and found baggies of what looked and smelled like dried meat. She tucked the other ones in a pocket of her cargos but kept one out. She opened it when she reached the door. Whether it was the sound or the smell, Boomer’s head snapped up; he looked at her then laid his head back down against Rae-Rae shifting closer.</p><p>“Hey, buddy. I know you miss them,” she told him, rubbing his head. His eyes looked up at her. “You can’t stay here. They might come back and try to hurt you.”</p><p>She pulled a treat out of the bag and held it near his mouth so he wouldn’t have to even raise his head from his human. “And I could really use your help. Not every day when you meet the smartest dog in the county.”</p><p>Another treat.</p><p>“Do you like to go for rides?”</p><p>That earned a curious look and a shift of Boomer’s head.</p><p>Tayen smiled. “Oh, temptation. I know that feeling, too,” she admitted with a laugh. “I got a truck with the windows down and a pocket full of treats. What do you say, Boomer? Friends?”</p><p>He whimpered and pressed his head down again. Tayen sighed. She scratched his head.</p><p>“I get it. This is home. They’re family.” She sat down beside him and just petted his head and his back. “Sorry this happened to you, boy.”</p><p>Whether it was time, the talking, the petting, or the treats, eventually Boomer’s head moved from the corpse of his owner to the deputy’s knee. Thankfully, no more of the Seed’s people showed up to check on their comrades’ lack of progress with the regional dog champion. Within the hour, the wind was whipping through Tayen’s hair as the old red truck sped north. Boomer’s head remained on her lap, her hand in his fur—a measure of comfort for both of them.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry for the sads, but it’s really a happy ending. I swear!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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